Explanation:
This forest of snow and ice
penitentes
reflects moonlight shining across the Chajnantor plateau.
The region lies in the Chilean Andes at an altitude of 5,000 meters,
not far from one of planet Earth's major astronomical observatories, the
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
Up to several meters high, the flattened, sharp-edged shapes,
and orientation of the penitentes
tend to minimize their shadows at local noon.
In the dry, cold, thin atmosphere, sublimation driven
by sunlight is important for
their formation.
A direct transition from a solid to a gaseous state,
sublimation
shapes other solar system terrains too, like
icy
surfaces of comets and the
polar
caps of Mars.
Above the dreamlike landscape stretches the southern night sky.
Their own forms rooted in myth,
look for
the constellations
Pegasus, Andromeda, and Perseus near the panorama's left edge.
Bright and colorful
stars of Orion the Hunter are near center,
with the Large Magellanic Cloud and the
South Celestial Pole
on the far right.